Top 5 Authority Figures In WWE History
By Brett Grega
Credit: WWE.com
5. John Laurinaitis
When most people think of John Laurinaitis, they think of the classic corporate stooge. The corrupt politician type only out for his own personal advancement.
Actually, those people would be correct.
Laurinaitis came off to fans exactly like a corrupt politician, which is what made his character so great. In many ways, he didn’t appear to be just another evil scheming Vince McMahon wannabee like we’ve seen far too often from WWE.
No, Big Johnny was presented as a power hungry underling to McMahon, a unique twist on what would probably be considered the traditional general manager role. This lead to many memorable clashes with members of the WWE roster.
In fact, I would argue CM Punk owes a fair amount of his success as a champion to Laurinaitis. His feud with Big Johnny was consistently one of the most entertaining angles in WWE at the time. The corporate intrigue wrapped around the feud, combined with the fact that CM Punk was oftentimes the perfect person to wipe the smug look off of Laurinaitis’ face with a devastating one-liner, led to great TV.
Oh, and Laurinaitis had one of the best slogans in WWE history: People Power! It was the perfect tone deaf tagline for his character, further cementing him as one of the best authority figures in WWE history.